Pickens Sheriff officers search one of two vehicles during a road checkpoint Saturday in the Pea Ridge area. No arrests were made.

Ralph O. Dennis

Contributing writer

Can a law enforcement operation be called a success with no arrests? Ask Sheriff Donnie Craig and he will probably say yes.

On Saturday evening, the Pickens County Sheriff’s Office in conjunction with the Department of Community Supervision, the Zell Miller Mountain Parkway Drug Task Force, the Appalachian Judicial Circuit Accountability and Pickens 911 teamed up to conduct several impaired driver checkpoints. These checkpoints were in the Pea Ridge area. The sheriff had received numerous calls from citizens asking for increased visibility in the area due to different types of criminal activity.

“We will definitely be doing more of these in the future,” Craig said following the operation. “And we will be stepping up our patrols in that area.”

Officers can use checkpoints to look for impaired motorists. On Saturday, during the three hours the checkpoints operated, 22 vehicles were checked, two warnings were issued, two vehicles were searched but no citations were written and no arrests were made.

These teams were set up with each officer having specific duties. After the briefing at headquarters, Captain April Killian sent the teams out.

Sheriff Craig told the Progress that one of the main objectives was to show the citizens of Pickens County that his and the other agencies are active in not only the arrest and apprehension of the criminals in the county but to let the public see them at work and to know they care. Several people going through the stops thanked the officers for being there.

In the future, there will be more of these checkpoints set up at various locations throughout the county and the times unannounced. It should be noted that this operation did not take away from the usual patrols by the on-duty deputies.